Quasi-homomorphisms and stable lengths in mapping class groups (Q4813744)

Let \(G\) be a group and \(S\) a subset of \(G\). The `\(S\)-length' \(l_S(g)\) of an element \(g\) in \(G\) is the minimal number of factors in a factorization of \(g\) into elements of \(S\) if such a factorization exists, and is equal to infinity otherwise. It is easy to see that the existence of a homomorphism \(\phi\colon G\to\mathbb{R}\) which is non-zero on \(g\) and whose restriction to \(S\) is bounded provides a lower bound to the \(S\)-length of \(g^n\) which is linear in \(n\), hence a lower bound for the `stable \(S\)-length' \(\| g\|_S=\lim_{n\to\infty}\tfrac{l_S(g^n)}n\) of \(g\). But there are important situations where no such homomorphism exists. The author considers this problem using quasi-homomorphisms instead of homomorphisms. Here, a map \(f\colon G\to\mathbb{R}\) is called a quasi-homomorphism if there exists a constant \(D\) such that for all \(x\) and \(y\) in \(G\), we have \[ |f(xy)-f(x)-f(y)|\leq D. \] The author studies applications of quasi-homomorphisms to the problem of giving a lower bound for the stable \(S\)-length and more generally to growth problems in groups. A particularly interesting group to which the author applies these ideas is the mapping class group of a surface. He obtains several results, in particular on the number of torsion elements required to factor a given element in the mapping class group. He makes a relation between this study and properties of superrigidity and of non-arithmeticity, and to the failure of (weak) bounded generation of the mapping class group.